People Who Lead Us to Our Soul’s Home Part 1

September 22, 2026

Welcome to this week’s Daily Reflections on “People Who Lead Us to Our Soul’s Home.”

I often hear people advising others to “Just be yourself.” But what “self” are they talking about? Do they mean our agreed-upon outward image—our personality? Those who advise us to just “be ourselves” think that by sticking to that outward image, we do not have to worry about judgments or performance, —we know the script—we just stick with it, do not try to improve it or make up another person to be. Though we know that outward image very well, is it really who we are? No. There is deeper self that far surpasses the ego’s outward personality in authenticity. This is our deepest identity in which we feel most profoundly “ourselves.” It is our real home—honest, genuine, and true. It is our essence— our soul, in which there is no need for a script or camouflage.

Living in our essence, we are most deeply ourselves and most deeply connected to the Divine. It is an inner place of belonging—where we are loved, cherished, and whole. Some describe it as a place within that feels full, free, and happy. And when we are living from that place, we naturally want others to feel it in themselves too.

Holding a baby is one of the very best ways to remember this home. After all, we were born as essence—innocent, undefended, and fresh from the mystery of creation. We did not yet strive for position, strategize our relationships, compete for worth, or retaliate against those who threatened us. We simply were. Our essence—our soul—was the only self we knew.

But as childhood unfolded, we faced life's demands and expectations. We discovered disappointment, fear, shame, rejection, and the possibility of not being loved as we were. Our vulnerable young selves needed protection.

So, quite naturally, we began developing ways to cope with the world. We formed mental and emotional strategies to gain love, avoid pain, find security, and protect what was most vulnerable within us. Over time, one particular way of meeting life became especially familiar. It fit our vulnerabilities almost perfectly. This became what we call the ego and the personality that formed around it. The ego was not our enemy. We needed it. It helped us survive, adapt, function, and make our way in the world. But the shelter we built for ourselves was never meant to become our home.

Gradually, we became so identified with the ego and personality that protected us that we lost touch with the deeper self— the essence it was protecting. Instead of living primarily from our essence, we began living from our ego’s strategies, fears, defenses, desires, and assumptions about what we needed to do to be safe and loved. Yet the soul never disappeared.

Sometimes it broke through—a sudden experience of wonder, deep love, beauty, compassion, peace, creativity, or joy. For a little while, we felt ourselves completely again. Something within us whispered, This is who you really are. Then life resumed, and often we returned to the familiar patterns of ego.

Eventually, however, life brings experiences that our usual strategies cannot solve. We encounter loss, disappointment, abandonment, trauma, failure, illness, disillusionment, or some other form of suffering that brings us to the limits of everything our ego knows how to do.

Sometimes we begin to see that the very patterns that once protected us may now contribute to our suffering. Our avoiding, controlling, pleasing, demanding, withdrawing, achieving, comparing, or defending no longer gives us the security we hoped it would. And something within us begins to long for another way.

Some people become so accustomed to living far from their depths that they scarcely remember there is another home within them. But others retain a faint memory—a kind of homesickness of the soul. Somewhere within, they remember a way of being that felt more peaceful, loving, free, and whole.

They want to return. And this is where one of life’s greatest gifts often appears. People come into our lives who somehow know something of the way home. They may be teachers, parents, grandparents, friends, therapists, spiritual guides, healers, spouses, children, or even strangers who enter our lives for only a brief season. They are not necessarily perfect people. They may not even realize the role they are playing. But something in them awakens something in us.

Perhaps we recognize them because our soul recognizes in them something it has been longing for—the qualities of compassion, truth, freedom, courage, tenderness, wisdom, or presence that belong to our own deepest nature. These people cannot make the journey for us. They cannot give us our soul. They simply help us remember the soul that has been waiting for us all along—the one we placed under the crust for protection. 

This week we will reflect on some of these people—the ones who have shown us the way, guided us through valleys, helped us cross difficult terrain, protected what was vulnerable within us, and nurtured our return from the life of ego toward our soul’s true home.

Spiritual Practice

Write a theological reflection on why human beings cannot live totally from the soul. 

Inquiry

What spiritual qualities do you experience when you feel “at home?”

Prayer

Dear God,

I pray to feel at home all the time. Yet I do not want to forget my duties, my practical life, my projects, and my plans. I pray for a way to combine these things under the leadership of my soul.

Amen